Friday, October 22, 2004

You know how people always say it's better to raise kids in the suburbs, because city kids, especially the ones who haven't fled to private schools, are the ones having all the sex and doing all the drugs? You know how that just doesn't ring true? Turns out, "Students in New York City public high schools use condoms more consistently than teenagers across the country, and they are less likely to smoke marijuana and binge on alcohol, according to a new city-sponsored survey." I don't know what amount of bias ought to be assumed because the city sponsored the survey, but I'm too tired to worry about that right now, thanks to an evening spent with my Astrophysics textbook. Nevertheless...I'm guessing the reason behind NYC kids' supposed puritanical habits is that there's more going on in the city than in most other parts of the country. Walking through busy parts of Manhattan and the outer boroughs is sufficiently stimulating to preclude the need for other stimulants.

Now it may just be that I'm exhausted and find anything that does not relate to physical sciences completely hilarious, but this passage of the Times article on (relatively) wholesome NYC public school kids definitely cracked me up:

"Students in Staten Island are most likely to abuse drugs and alcohol, and students in Brooklyn and the Bronx are most likely to have multiple sex partners. Manhattan students are most likely to have considered suicide, and students in Queens, more than in any other borough, consider themselves overweight."

Is "consider one's self overweight" now a social ill along the lines of sleeping around too much, considering suicide, and abusing substances? Frankly I'm surprised that Manhattan wasn't the borough with the most high school students who consider themselves overweight. Then again, private schools were not included in the survey.